I'm at my house, and looking out the window, I see Dena's car parked rakishly behind mine at the bottom of the driveway. She and Dusty are getting out of a convertible, switching cars, like they borrowed one from me.

They don't see me looking out the window, and they come up to the door as if they are going to say hello, but then they don't come in or knock or anything. I wait to see what they are going to do.

Suddenly the phone rings, and they burst through the door as if they were waiting for that, and slip through the crowd (there are a lot of people at my house) to grab the telephone. It's for me.

At the other end is a lady from the bank's fraud department who wants to verify a credit card transaction. "We have a recent transaction for the purchase of a family clothes hamper. Is that legitimate?"

"No", I say, "I haven't bought a hamper in many years. Definitely fraudulent."

"Great!" she says, "I thought so! I've been talking to this guy, and he's been lying to me all morning!"

I don't think that sounds so great, since my numbers were stolen. I still have the card, so it must have been an online transaction, probably some tickets I bought lately. This means the tickets are probably bogus too. I wait for instructions from her, but she's apparently distracted with some paperwork.